>>149402354Women are smaller and lighter, that is an advantage at the marathon. They need to carry less weight. A marathon isn't about explosive power after all - men's most dominant physical field is explosive power. That's why the performance gap between genders decreases as the distances get longer
Women do have comparatively more strength in their lower body than men, just not absolute strength.
While not as massive as the gap at 100m performance, the marathon gap still is significant. 2:00:35 and 2:09:56 are far enough apart - you need to be 5.5 minutes faster thaan the best woman ever to crack the Top 50 male times, and it is 2.5 minutes slower than the entry standard for the World Championships